Home Alone: Taco Edition
by fando
Summary: Takano finds out that, after leaving for vacation, Onodera left his apartment door open. He's about to have some fun.
1. Encounter With The Enemy

"I don't see why you have to leave," grumbled Takano, plucking one of the shirts out of the suitcase.

"Well, I don't see why it takes me explaining it five times for you to understand," snapped Onodera. "That I'm going on vacation."

"Why?"

" _Why_?"

Onodera grabbed the shirt back, folded it in his lap neatly, and packed it away again, ignoring his boss.

Takano leaned over. When he got too close, Onodera glanced up; he froze. The collar of Takano's shirt had dropped and with his chest exposed like that– ever so slightly– it was making Onodera distracted, more than slightly. Takano took the shirt again, and when Onodera came back to reality, he blinked, and frowned, and blushed.

"Hey-!"

"You can't go," said Takano. "That's final."

Onodera rolled his eyes. Takano pinched Onodera's arms and rubbed his hair, and when that didn't work be flopped down on the couch, got up again, and flopped down again. He tried putting his feet up on Onodera's table. But Onodera just kept packing, folding clothes, being an ass.

"Oh my god, who do you think you're ignoring, Onodera?" He dropped his head on his hand, sighing in defeat. "…where are you going again?"

"I'm going to my parent's house."

Takano smirked. "Sounds great."

Onodera looked over his shoulder and ended up staring at Takano's crotch. Takano, by sitting directly behind Onodera on the couch, had made this happen, and by the smile in his eyes it had been intentional. Onodera pressed his lips into a tight line and Takano leaned down.

"We can go together," he whispered. And then-

Takano shot up straight when Onodera giggled. What the fucking hell? When had Ritsu ever done that? He tried to sift through his memories, fascinated, but his mind was all blank now and filled with Onodera's giggling. He could fall in love all over again. He wanted to record that sound. He wanted to play it back every hour of every day. But it hurt, too, because it reminded Takano of how much this asshole controlled him, just by walking and talking and being a brat and….

"Yeah, go together to see my parents," Onodera was saying, smiling like Takano had told the best knock-knock joke in Japan. "No way. Do you know what my mother would say? Not to mention my father…."

Onodera closed the clamps on the suitcase and got up to put on his coat and shoes, muttering. Onodera was telling him to get out so he could lock up the apartment. He had to be at the train station in twenty minutes. He needed to leave. He needed to leave Takano. He needed to go. No.

Takano put his hands on Onodera's waist and yanked him onto his lap. Onodera blushed, about halfway to death-by-embarrassment, and Takano kissed that face, those lips, holding those hips.

"Takano!"

"Shh."

That train would be the last fucking place he was going.

Onodera squirmed off and made an agitated show of wiping his mouth off with his sleeve. Takano stood up, and Onodera quickly walked toward the door, pretending the wobbling in his legs wasn't there. He would never, ever admit that being grabbed like that had been incredibly, incredibly ho-

"Onodera-"

"What do you f-"

"Promise me that you'll come back."

"Sorry, Takano," Onodera sighed loudly. "I'll stay in my parents' house forever so I can live with them and the constant nagging from my mother. Ritsu, take over the company; Ritsu, get married. That's exactly the kind of thing I want."

Takano, walking to him, draped his arms over Onodera's shoulders. "You want to get married?"

Onodera yanked himself backwards so forcefully that he collided with the door.

"Fine, fine. I'll let you go," said Takano. "But you need to promise to call me every day. If you forget, I'm docking it out of your salary."

Onodera gave Takano a look, a glare that laid somewhere between the "oh-please-you-don't-have-the-authority-to-do-that" and the "please-don't-do-that" notches on The Fed-Up Facial Expressions Scale. "Please get out of my house."

"Whatever you say, Ritsu." Onodera blushed.

He opened the door for Takano, and turned away to lock it behind him. He fumbled with the keys, dropping them, but a big hand reached under his arm and caught them smoothly. Takano prodded Onodera's enflamed cheek with his nose.

"…well?" "What can you possibly want now?"

"Rude. Don't I get a good-bye kiss?"

Nearly choking, Onodera ducked out from under Takano's hovering presence, grabbed his keys, and started walking briskly down the hall. He made the one mistaken of turning around. And, before he knew it, he was retracing his steps, and in God's presence, under those little lights lining the hallway, he watched himself stand straight and kiss Takano's cheek. He blinked. He was on the elevator, feeling like someone had hit him in the head with a baseball bat. And through the space between the doors, the space quickly disappearing, he saw Takano's figure frozen in the middle of the hallway.


	2. I'm The Man Of The House!

Ritsu Onodera's phone buzzed impatiently in his coat pocket. He glanced up at his apartment building to shoot a glare toward where Masamune Takano was surely spying on him.

"Takano?" he said, holding the phone to his ear. "What is it?"

"Turn around and come back."

"Wh-"

"That's an order."

" _You are acting like a child."_

Hoping Takano was watching, he made a show of hanging up, turning around, and marching away.

Takano sighed. He'd turned off all the lights and wandered into the bedroom, where he sat down on the floor. This felt like fucking acid filtering through his heart's chambers, making it _blacker_ and _bitterer_ than it had been before.

Takano checked the clock and groaned. Scratch that. _It hadn't even been five minutes._

He went to bed early, hungry, and embarrassed. But, the images of Onodera that his unconscious mind conjured up irritated his sleep, which brought the bags under his eyes and the burn in the back of his throat. The next morning, he called Onodera, itching for the sound of his voice, lost without it. It was also 4 AM, approximately, but Takano didn't care.

"What is it?" Onodera answered irritably.

"I forgot to tell you something important."

"Oh, okay. Is it about work? Did something happen?"

"I love you."

Onodera hung up; Takano resisted breaking his phone into a thousand pieces.

He was whipped and denying it would make the rope burn worse.

Takano was the first to arrive at work. He was also the first to finish. He was the first to make snap comments at Kisa, who brought cookies into the workplace. He was the first to fall asleep while sitting on a heap of paperwork and angry phone calls. He was the first to go home, but only because Yokozawa dragged his ass down to the lobby and kicked him out of Marukawa for the day, on the grounds of "bad attitude" and, when Takano had begun to protest, "insubordination".

He couldn't stop fucking thinking.

Onodera was having fun without him, probably, with his family and his cousins and his distant relatives. And those cousins' _friends_. Onodera was- probably- mingling with those relatives, no matter how the little shit was at socializing; mingling, merrily, smiling smiles that should be reserved for Takano. Ritsu Onodera's smile had always been the light of Takano's life. Obviously, _everyone_ noticed it. And, because of that smile, he was probably getting _hit on_ by the cousins' friends. Not just the smile, but the dorky way he stood and the manner in which he talked about books, like a child talking about race cars. Onodera was air-headed, too. He wouldn't realize what was happening with those idiot girls until it was, indeed, happening, and Onodera would be hitched with some chick from Hokkaido before Takano knew it, and that would be the tragic end of their not-really-real-but-it-almost-happened love story.

Takano groaned. He'd dragged himself into the elevator of his apartment complex on autopilot. He didn't want to think about all the innocents he'd probably rammed into in his Ritsu-induced, jealous fantasy. He dragged his feet down the hallway.

Ritsu should have been in his apartment, but he wasn't. Takano knew he wasn't. God damn it.

Rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand, he opened the door to his apartment and flicked the lights on. Immediately, something was wrong. He could tell, exactly, without looking up, without even looking around, without even opening his eyes, that something was wrong. He could tell, because he tripped the second he tried to take the step into his apartment, falling flat on his face on bare floor. One, his apartment had a little floor rug covering most of the interior. Where the hell had that gone? Two, he didn't own a pair of brown slip-on loafers. Defying all logic, there they were, in size 26.5 cm, hazardously left in front of the door. Who the hell did that?

This wasn't his apartment. It was _Ritsu's._

This was a mistake. He should get out of here like a decent, respectful person, who cared about the privacy rights of his neighbors would. Hurriedly, Takano got his ass off of the ground, shutting the door and locking it.

"That stupid fucker…."

He took off his shoes. He grinned, taking in the interior of Ritsu's apartment. So, Ritsu's vacation would shape up to be fun after all.


	3. Outsmarted And A Welcome Guest

Masamune Takano was a full grown adult and a team leader. Masamune Takano was breaking into his ex-boyfriend's apartment.

"God, Onodera," he said, looking around and covering his nose. He shut and locked the door behind him, and then he began to pick clothes up off the floor. "I can't believe you. You've really degraded yourself with this place."

This would be a little creepy if it wasn't Onodera's place. He imagined if it was Kisa's, or even Hatori's, and shook his head to himself. If he'd stumbled on their doors wide-open in the middle of the hallway, he'd just shut it, lock it and go away, minding his business; maybe he'd let them know, but probably not. He wouldn't do this if it wasn't Onodera.

"Look at all this shit," he said to no one. He gathered the laundry into one big pile but, upon bringing it the Onodera's washing machine, realized that he didn't have any detergent. He figured that he couldn't just leave it all here for Onodera to lean by himself. That wouldn't be doing the job to the fullest. So, he figured, how Onodera would be riled up if he washed Onodera's clothes with his own.

Takano had some manuscripts to edit, but he was drawn to cleaning. He wouldn't get any more chances in his life to do this.

He stopped. "To do what?"

Then, he laughed at himself, stooping down and continuing to clean the apartment that belonged to the man he was pining after.

Takano was aware how and when he'd turned into a high school girl. It's Onodera's fault. It's Onodera who doesn't give him anything more than a couple crumbs and an empty apartment. He wouldn't be like this if it wasn't for Onodera."How crazy you make me," he sighed.

He knew that Onodera had no way of hearing him, but he had started to talk to an imaginary Onodera as he cleaned, dumping the first load in the washer. Onodera had riddled him with ridiculousness. For example, thinking that reading the same books, wearing similar clothes, and doing their laundry in the same spin cycle would make them any more close than reading the same books was ridiculous. Talking to Onodera's empty flat wouldn't make Onodera his.

"You know, these things don't go here, Onodera," he said despite that. "And would it kill you to clean up for once? Jesus Christ. You're so messy."

His phone rang. He checked it while aiming a can of air freshener at the couch. It might be Kisa or Hatori, or an author, or someone similarly annoying and ready to rain on his parade.

When he looked at the caller ID, his heart fumbled for its rhythm, just like it always did. He pressed it to his ear, cleared his throat, and grunted, "Hello. What do you want?"

"Takano?" said Onodera from the other line. "I just wanted to check in. To see how things are doing without me in the office?"

Takano rolled his eyes and pointed the air freshener can to the ceiling. "Don't worry about us. Don't you have some relatives to go and mingle with?"

"Can you just tell me how to office is doing?"

"It's burning down in flames," said Takano, after a thoughtful pause. "You're out of a job, Onodera, sorry."

"…very funny." He smiled; he knew that, whenever Onodera hesitated like that, he'd fallen for Takano's teasing. It was refreshing. "Are you at work?"

"You know that it's my off day."

"So you're at your apartment?" Onodera sighed and his breath crackled through the phone like static. "Can you check the lock on my apartment door while you're there? I don't think I locked it properly."

Takano looked behind him at Onodera's apartment door. "…I don't feel like it."

"Could you please just check on it? What if someone breaks in?"

"Somebody already did break into your apartment."

"What? I need to go back home!"

"No, it's okay," said Takano. "I took care of it. I took care of the whole thing. See, Onodera? Aren't I your knight in shining armor?"

"Rusty armor," Onodera muttered. "What did they take? Is everything okay?"

"I told you I took care of it. I'll see you when you get back, Onodera. If you don't trust me, maybe you should come back home early. I love you. Bye."

He hung up before Onodera could say anything else.


	4. Falling Into The Wrong Hands

This was Ritsu's private bedroom. Hearts are a lot harder to break into than rooms, with their unbreakable locks. Takano checked the lock on Onodera's door that night, clicked it shut. The sound echoed in the apartment. He decided against going back to his own apartment. Too long a walk. There were pajamas fresh from the wash, and Takano barely fit in Ritsu's highwater pajama pants, but laying in Ritsu's bed wearing them made him feel special and he fell asleep that way. Anybody else would call it pathetic.

What if, past the breakers, Takano's own apartment's security, all of it, was breached? What if someone decided to be a dick to him like this? What if it wasn't a crazy lover? They'd take everything- worse, they'd see everything. They'd think it's pathetic.

At least it wouldn't be anything revealing. All he owned was blank. Everything in the bookshelves was a file from work. Everything in his drawers was something generic and unlabeled from the convenience store. He didn't even own any Akihiko Usami novels- not anymore.

But they'd see all the blankness. It would still be pathetic. Even a thief would think, Wow this guy must be sad. Not sad. Not sad- no, but lonely.

So, how much did Onodera reveal about himself in his apartment? Takano had finished cleaning everything and had stooped to snooping. In high school, Takano hadn't had the chance to explore even the shallowest of Oda's secrets; and yet now, here he was, with the biggest opportunity in front of him, and he was hesitating. He stood there with a new day in front of him. This wasn't right. He was a man. He bought toothpaste from the convenience store across the street just like every other self-respecting man with wives to be faithful to and doors to put locks on. Would Yokozawa even do this? Probably not.

But… Ritsu had once hidden an engagement from him. An engagement. That's huge. What else could he be hiding?

"Wow."

Did Takano even have a right to any of this?

"I'm his boss. If he has something going on and he's not telling me, then I should know," he muttered.

That was that. And he found out things here. There were secrets in the darkest corners here. Ritsu kept photo albums. He kept treasures _. Gold._ Shit; it would take days to go through all this. Ritsu kept all the photo albums in wobbly stacks next to the bathroom, where they gathered dust in the corner. For half an hour, Takano sat looking through them, cross legged. Paper embarrassments. They weren't anything fancy- blue trim, cardboard- but they held Ritsu's success story. They were journals and pictures of his family and his life and his job at Onodera Publishing. And Takano wasn't there in it. And it was a sad story as his fingers searched for himself in these pages, and a tragedy as they fell off the edge of the page, empty and tingling.

He got up. There were drawers to go through. Ritsu's drawers. What if….

Takano paused. It was late in the day. Random leaves hit and stuck to the windows, rushed around by the wind, and they were painted the colors of the light. Looking at them, Takano smiled. What if one day, they shared drawers themselves- an entire apartment, even? Was that too much to dream about? The smile slipped off his face as the leaves were hurried away by the passing wind. It was only a passing whim.

Takano ruffled around Onodera's drawers. There were things in the bottom, hidden under his underwear and shirts. Hard, knock on knuckles, plastic. They felt like….

 _What are thooose?_

Books. He took them out, sitting on the bed with them. They were plastic, hard-cover books like the photo albums. The first books had couples on them, and the last two had babies. What could Onodera need these for? What the fuck? People need baby books for babies. Did An have something to do with this? How long had he had these?

"What the fuck…." Takano muttered, leafing through them. A second called _Mommy and Daddy_ was highlighted and stained with notes, little drabbles in Onodera's handwriting, seemingly everywhere. The rest of the book seemed untouched. He put them down. His phone buzzed, and he put that down on the bed too, without looking at it.

The rest he focused his attention on. Relationship advice books? Relationship books. This entire series was marked up well. Twice. Onodera had probably gone through this with two different colored highlighters, reading it twice. It was strange. Takano didn't know what was going on, but he knew it was weird. He stared at the books as his phone rang again, glaring at the covers, looking back and forth.

"Who the fuck is this for?"


	5. Throwing Bricks

Someone must have had some strong, steel balls to keep on calling him when he was clearly busy, and he wasn't sure if he should spite the caller by sending whoever-it-was to voicemail for the seventh time or by finally answering with loud good-morning-to-you yelling. Frankly, it was getting on his last damn nerve. He'd throw the phone out the window if it rang again.

That was the only sure thing of this situation.

His other hand was still holding open the baby books, and he continued looking at them, half-distracted, mumbling a barely-there, "Hello," as he picked up the phone.

"Uh, Takano…." That voice. It sent him reeling off the bed like a teenager. That one pissy, whiny sound made by those irritated, too-tight vocal cords genetically passed down to that one little tight assed fuck that was his subordinate "Are you at work? I know it's sort of last minute, but I need something from my apartment, if you don't mind…."

 _Work?_

"Takano? …is my signal weak or something, crap…"

 _What was he supposed to be minding right now? Work? ….manuscripts…?_

 _Shit._

He'd forgotten all about the real world. He needed to put on his own damn pants, like a man, and get to the train station. Quick. Onodera was still jabbering on. For convenience, Takano hit the speaker button and balanced the phone on the bookcase as he dropped to fish his clothes out from under the bed, where they'd somehow slid.

"Fuck, I have to get going…" he muttered.

That tipped Onodera off. "You're not at work? Takano! That's irresponsible! And would it kill you talk more nicely, please…"

"Oh my god, would you shut the fuck up?" He found a pair of pants but no belt and emerged from the floor to put them on, deciding it would be only minorly mentally scarring if his pants fell down in the middle of work. Kisa would love to see his boxers anyway. 

Right off the bat, Takano knew where this was going. And he knew it would only ever end either when Takano decided to pull Onodera's most sensitive strings or when Onodera hung up on his own, leaving Takano to fum. Neither would ever be left happy. Not at this rate. Not at all. Who'd Onodera buy the baby books for? Was he hanging this up on his own?

More importantly, who was it with him on the other line?

He didn't have time for this today, or the patience. He felt annoyed, like there was a fly in the room. There _was_ a fly in the room. When had Takano ever been shut out like this? He'd known about Haitani, he'd known about…. A long time ago, Oda had shared everything with him. There hadn't been anybody else to know about.

He needed to find this the fuck out now.

"Takano? Is everything alright?" Takano jumped. Realizing he'd been standing for a full minute with his dress shirt dangling off one arm, he slowly creaked back into motion.

"I just need to get to work. What did- fuck." He tripped over his shoelaces. "What did you call for?"

"Are you sure there's nothing wrong?" Onodera said instead. "You sound… bothered."

"I'm fine, sugar tits. Just make sure you come back soon so you can cook me dinner," Takano barked.

"Hey…!"

"Well, don't talk like you're my wife if you're even dating me."

"What? _Takano_. First of all, that's extremely sexist and I told you that it's inappropriate. I was going to call about my apartment door, I don't think I actually locked it before I left. I wanted you to check on it for me. But, first, are you okay?"

Takano needed to leave. He was late. His bag was next to the door and as he went to go get it, he reviewed his options coldly.

He had already stooped to those pathetic lows, the ones not able to be hidden. Reasonably, he wasn't in a position to keep yelling and being snarky at the person whose apartment he raided. But reasonable, Betty Crocker, hometown, nice-nice, family, traditional things weren't hidden baby books. Maybe Onodera should know about it. This. Takano couldn't keep it hidden. Maybe Onodera should stuff his own lack of privacy up his own ass, and know that he couldn't keep anything from him. That would feel good, wouldn't it? Takano pressed the phone to his ear.

"Your door was open."

"Oh. Crap. Can you close and lock it? If you lock it from the inside, you don't need key."

Takano did just that, and kept talking. "I went in and- what the hell are these books about, Onodera? The baby books at the bottom of the dresser? What the _shit,_ Onodera? What exactly do you think you're hiding from me?"

It took Onodera the walk from the apartment to the elevator to finish processing what Takano was saying. It was such an intense silence and such a belated response, Takano could imagine the gears in his brain turning.

Maybe this was a bad idea. He could already feel the uncomfortable, cold tingling a guilty person feels when they're found out. No worries, he could patch this up. He could lie, he could make up for it.

"Onodera, I didn't mean to go into your apartment."

"You… _you_ …. You went into my apartment? Are you serious?!"

"Onodera, uh, stop yelling for a second." People were filing in now from different floors. They had nothing to do with this conversation, but they kept glancing at Takano as he struggled to turn the phone off speaker. Onodera's voice was making everyone uncomfortable.

"You went through my clothes?!"

"I'm on the _elevator_. With _people_. Calm _down_."

"You asshole!"

"Hold on!"

"No, I will not hold on! You didn't hold on! You went ahead and went through my things! What the hell?! There are things I did not want you to look at!"

Time to change tactics. Someone gave him an odd look, an upturned brow, a disapproving frown. Takano turned to face the corner. "Well, if you hadn't left your door open…"

"This isn't my fault, you _fucking_ , ugh, Masamune! And don't you dare tell me to not curse at my superiors!"

"If you hadn't gotten out baby books for you and some girlfriend I don't even know about…. So is it a girl or a boy, _Onodera_?"

"It's not like that, and you have no right to be angry at me. And I don't have to tell you anything. I'll see you when I get back."

"Wait, Onodera!"

And then Onodera hung up. Like that, all by himself. And Takano was left on the other end of the line, with all these people with him.

 _Damn, this is way overdue. Sorry guys. I didn't expect what started as a crackfic to be my most popular story. Plus, some crazy shit has been going down in my personal life… my girlfriend's brother just died… my charity is growing faster than I can fund it… I'm going to college in a couple weeks… so many personal projects…._

 _I hope you like this chapter tho!_

 _-Fando_


	6. Apologies

this is a no mpreg zone.


	7. A Concerned Mother

In the elevator, Takano took a deep moment to reflect. He thought hard about his life and his choices. First of all, he was an idiot. _Idi-fucking-ot._

Somebody sneezed, a stuttering sound like a garbage truck coming from an overweight businessman in a pressed monkey suit, breaking the silence in which Takano had been meditating, his phone gripped in his shaking hand. Fuck it; work could go screw itself. Abruptly leaning over, he jabbed the button for the floor from which he'd just escaped, elbowing the business monkey and a pregnant lady unceremoniously.

"Excuse me!" the woman said, taken aback.

"You're excused."

So that was the story, morning glory. Onodera had found some girl, gotten her pregnant- just like that lady he just elbowed, she'd fucked and gotten pregnant too- and was preparing for it, for a life. Like any other normal guy. It was probably fucking An. _Fucking_ An. So all those times he'd snuck off to talk to her while at work, there had been some chemistry there. An was prettier than him. No- screw that. He was fucking adorable.

Instead of heading back to his own apartment, his legs automatically led him to Onodera's front door. He tried to open the door but remembered last-minute: _If you lock it from the inside, you don't need a key_.

He rubbed his eyes, pushing his glasses up his forehead. "Mother _of actual fuck._ " What a day. He just wanted to bury himself in Onodera's apartment- make himself feel better. _Pa-fucking-thetic._ Laughable. Haha.

He could go back to his own apartment. Review his options, get back on his feet, tally ho soldier. Or he could break in.

When his mother's package arrived for him, and he opened it, Onodera had been given a reason to be nervous in a way only relatable to other young men forced into arranged marriages. Really- there was no understanding this otherwise. A couple weeks ago, he'd found a plastic grey package waiting for him outside his apartment door. He'd brought it inside and forgotten about it until that night, when he had been on the phone with An and cooking soup. He balanced his cell between his shoulder and ear so he could stir better, but it was hard. He'd brought the package into the kitchen with him and was talking about it. It was too heavy to be mochi, too hard to be clothes; maybe it was books.

"I don't... know... what she could have possibly sent me... ugh. Hold on for just one second. There. I put the phone on speaker. Can you hear me?"

"Yes, Ricchan. So what, you didn't even open it? Aren't you curious?" An chidded.

"It's probably something stupid. Like wedding rings or something," he grumbled, stirring, frowning, and glaring at the pot of what should have been soup but was probably overcooked tomato water at this point.

"Wedding rings?!" An's laugh sounded like sharp static.

Onodera's chuckle back was dry and empty. "I'm not saying I wouldn't be happy for her to pay for my own wedding rings. I've just told her a million times already, I don't want to get married. Neither of us do."

"Well, I'm not saying I don't _want_ to..." Onodera's heart skipped a scared beat. "This arranged marriage thing is just... Like you said."

"Ridiculous?"

When An agreed, Onodera ignored the annoyed briskness to it. He didn't want to hear that she supported this arranged marriage- this joke. He loved An- just not like that. And if An was on his mother's side with this, he'd have no one backing him up. So he just nodded like he couldn't tell that An wasn't happy. Onodera left the soup to boil, giving up on it, and slit his mother's gift open with a paring knife. He frowned when he saw what was in it: worse than what he was expecting. "...you have got to be kidding me, mom... She got me a ton of baby books!"

"For _who_?" An asked, sounding as shocked as a person could over the static of the cheap, outdated phone Onodera owned. "I mean, are you expecting or something?" She laughed.

Onodera shot the phone a bewildered glare. _"Am I expecting_?"

"Oh my- I'm sorry. I meant, do you have a girlfriend who's expecting? Sorry, that came off wrong."

Girlfriend, huh? That whole situation was a big, dumb joke. "You would have known if I had a girlfriend. I'm not even interested in anyone right now..."

 **"Not even Mr. Next Door Neighbor?" An's voice was tight.**

 **"Especially not him!" Onodera snapped. He grabbed his stirring spoon and dumped it back into the pot angrily.** "I imagine these books are a type of message to me, saying 'Marry An.' That's all I hear from her nowadays. She just wants grandchildren. I'm going to throw them out."

He expected her to back him up on how ridiculous this was. Be up in arms. Not the silence she was giving him. But she kept staying silent. Stirring slowly, he waited for the outrage from her end of the line.

"...An?" he said slowly. "This is ridiculous, right?"

"... yes. Completely ridiculous."

 **They talked for a little while longer, and An couldn't see Onodera flipping through the baby books like a bored patient waiting for a doctor's appointment. He wasn't interested in them or anything. He was still mad. These books had an entire couple chapters dedicated to relationship advice, and he read those. He laughed lowly every once in a while.**

 _ **Listen to your partner.**_ **Did Mr. Next Door Neighbor ever do that? Onodera snorted.**

 _ **Support your partner.**_ **Did Mr. Next Door- well actually...**

 _Spend quality time together._ But he didn't want to spend time with Mr. Next Door fucking Neighbor. He spent enough time with him already. But still, this was good advice. Maybe Mr. Next Door Neighbor should hear this.

Eventually An needed to go to bed. Onodera closed the books, bringing them with him to his bedroom and slipping his phone back in his pocket, forgetting all about his burnt tomato water. He had some reading to do. Maybe, just maybe, these books were the answer to his problems with Mr. Next Door Neighbor. How ironic that they should come from his mother for the purpose of preparing him to have children with a woman, when he would use them to mend the mistakes between himself and another man. He stored the books in his dresser drawer before going to sleep.

And that is the story behind the baby books.


End file.
